Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies & Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to extend to you a very warm welcome to Cyprus and to this important regional meeting on seed policy and programmes in the Near East and North Africa.
We have gladly accepted the idea of hosting this meeting in Cyprus and I would like to express my deep appreciation to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for their decision to organize it here, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research Institute.
Our country has a long history of productive cooperation with FAO, which goes back to the years immediately after Independence in the early 1960’s. At that time, the newly established Republic of Cyprus was embarking on a major development effort, trying to mobilize all available productive resources and to create the necessary infrastructure that would ensure the economic development and progress of its people.
In this effort, FAO played a major role and contributed greatly to the successful development of the agricultural sector, which has made remarkable progress.
Today, despite the rapid expansion of other sectors of the economy, like tourism and services, agriculture continues to be an important sector of the national economy, contributing about 5% to the GDP, providing employment to about 10% of the economically active population and contributing more than 34% to domestic exports, supplementing the income of thousands of rural families and providing raw materials to the agro-industrial sector.
The Government of Cyprus is determined to maintain and further develop this basic primary sector. Rural development plans focus mainly on the provision of adequate infrastructure, improvement of the social and economic position of the farmers, increasing productivity and export maximization.
The subject of your meeting, namely seed policy and programme is of considerable importance for the development of the agricultural sector. It is widely accepted that the use of high quality seed combined with good farming practice can lead to higher productivity and improve farm income.
Seed production, processing marketing and certification have been introduced in Cyprus as early as in 1945. The Department of Agriculture has been dealing initially with the production of vegetable seeds for export but subsequently attention was focused on the production of seed for domestic use. Today the Seed Production Center of the Ministry of Agriculture is a dynamic Center processing seeds of cereals, forage crops, food legumes and vegetables for domestic sale covering a large part of local demand for such seeds. Supply of good quality seed is of vital importance for the farmers of our region. I am confident that the deliberations of the meeting will highlight the existing situation in the countries of the region, will identify existing problems and will formulate recommendations to overcome them. The meeting will at the same time prepare the ground for future cooperation on this issue. The Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment will be looking forward to receive your recommendations. May I conclude by wishing you every success in your deliberations and to you, distinguished speakers and participants, a pleasant stay in Cyprus during the meeting and a safe return home after its conclusion
Thank you very much.
